In an increasingly turbulent world, Canada is determining our future. We have the strength to build, the discipline to deliver, and the values to take care of each other.
Budget 2026 is the next major step of our ambitious, pragmatic, generational plan to make Canadians maîtres chez nous – masters of our destiny – building our sovereignty and giving us the freedom to live our lives as we choose. And being maîtres chez nous begins with a place to call your own.
Canadians always care for each other. The crisis of homelessness that has deepened since the pandemic strikes at the heart of Canadian values of fairness, solidarity, and human dignity. That is why Budget 2026 sets Canada on a path to end homelessness within 10 years. Backed by nearly $30 billion, this is an unprecedented federal initiative to tackle homelessness and ensure all Canadians can live in dignity and community.
Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, was joined by the Premier of Manitoba, Wab Kinew, and the Mayor of Winnipeg, Scott Gillingham, to announce the first step in delivering that plan: a landmark partnership with Manitoba, backed by over $1 billion in new federal funding. This partnership will help build more than 2,000 new supportive and transitional homes and a new Winnipeg Centre for Mental Health and Addictions.
A national plan built on what works
For decades, governments, communities, and front-line organisations have grappled with homelessness, and their experience has shown what makes the biggest difference.
Homelessness is about more than a roof over one’s head. It is about the help people rely on every day, the stability of a safe and affordable home, and the health care many need, including for mental health and addictions. For too long, these systems have operated apart, and not at the scale this crisis demands. Budget 2026 brings them together around what we have learned works: help, housing, and health.
Help: reaching people early, and staying with them until they find a home
- $6.5 billion to renew and strengthen the Reaching Home Initiative and support for veteran homelessness. This funding supports community-led efforts to prevent homelessness, connect people with shelter and essential services, and help them find employment support and a permanent home. Communities will be expected to provide more consistent and timely data to measure the scale of homelessness and track progress in reducing it.
- $5.5 billion to renew the Canada Housing Benefit to provide direct monthly rental assistance to low-income Canadians, including survivors of gender-based violence, so they can pay their rent, keep their homes, and avoid becoming homeless.
Housing: a safe place to go, from transitional homes to deeply affordable ones
- $10 billion through Build Canada Homes to support the delivery of about 25,000 supportive and transitional homes across Canada. The federal government will fund construction, while provinces and territories fund operations and the services residents need to stay housed.
- This investment will grow as more partners step forward.
Health: care and a home, together under one roof
- $5 billion for a new Integrated Supports Fund, delivered through Build Canada Homes, to build facilities that bring housing, health care, mental health and addictions treatment, and other social services together, with public, private and philanthropic partners. The model builds on the success of Toronto’s Dunn House, where residents’ emergency room visits have been cut in half.
- $2 billion for the Build Communities Strong Fund’s Health Infrastructure Fund to build new community mental health and addictions treatment facilities and refurbish existing ones.
Starting in Winnipeg
Premier Kinew and community and philanthropic partners brought forward a plan to break the cycle of homelessness, and the federal government responded. Under the partnership:
- Up to $800 million in federal funding will support more than 2,000 new supportive and transitional homes for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The City and the Province will identify and provide public land, and the Province will operate the homes and provide the supports that come with them.
- Over $200 million in federal funding, the first investment from the new Integrated Supports Fund, will support construction of the Winnipeg Centre for Mental Health and Addictions. The Centre will bring acute and outpatient mental health and addictions care together with permanent housing and coordinated support services: one front door to help, housing, and health. The Province will cover half the cost of construction, operate the Centre, and provide job training and income supports, and philanthropic partners will contribute from construction through operations. The Centre is expected to be fully operational in as soon as three years.
These projects, combined with supportive and transitional housing already committed by Build Canada Homes in partnership with Manitoba, mean up to 2,500 new homes in Winnipeg. Homes with critical supports, for the people who need them most.
An open invitation
The Winnipeg partnership is a model for what can be achieved when governments, communities, and partners come together. We can do this everywhere. The Government of Canada will work with every willing partner.
A home is more than a roof over someone’s head. It is the foundation for good health, personal security, and the opportunity to build a better life. This is what it means to be maîtres chez nous: a sovereign Canada, where we take care of each other, where we create opportunities for all, and where we are free to live our lives as we choose.
Quotes
“Homelessness is one of the hardest challenges our country faces, and no government can solve it alone. With Budget 2026, we are bringing help, housing, and health care together, building on what front-line workers have taught us, to end homelessness within 10 years. Today, we are putting that plan into action in Winnipeg, and we are inviting every willing partner across the country to join us in this effort.”
The Rt. Hon. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada
“There should be no homelessness in a rich country like Canada, and here in Manitoba we decided we were no longer willing to see our community members live in tents. We can, and we should, do better. Our government’s Your Way Home strategy is focused on going tent to tent, offering housing and the wrap-around supports folks need to stay there. This new investment unlocks more capacity for us to ensure everybody has a place to call home, and just as importantly, that each person has the mental health and addictions supports they need to succeed.”
The Hon. Wab Kinew, Premier of Manitoba
“This is a once-in-a-generation investment in Winnipeg that will change lives. This is what happens when federal, provincial, municipal, and Indigenous governments work together with community and private-sector partners to take on our biggest challenges. I want to thank Prime Minister Carney and Premier Kinew for their leadership. The City of Winnipeg is ready to do its part and get these projects delivered as quickly as possible.”
His Worship Scott Gillingham, Mayor of Winnipeg
Quick facts
- On November 5, 2026, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, François-Philippe Champagne, tabled Budget 2026 in the House of Commons.
- Budget 2026 sets out the next step in a comprehensive housing strategy to address Canada’s housing crisis, built around three pillars:
- Pillar 1 – Setting Canada on a path to end homelessness within 10 years: nearly$30 billion to build supportive and transitional housing, bring housing and health care together, expand mental health and addictions treatment, and strengthen homelessness prevention and rental assistance.
- Pillar 2 – Tripling the rate of non-market housing starts, with Build Canada Homes playing a central role: Nearly $15 billion to triple annual non-market housing starts to 24,000, including by mobilising investment, making better use of public land, and expanding the supply of affordable housing through non-profit organisations, housing co-operatives, and public agencies.
- Pillar 3 – Creating the conditions for a housing market that works for everyone: Over $750 million to make homes faster and cheaper to build by streamlining approvals and standardising modern building methods.
- This builds on over $100 billion that the federal government is already estimated to spend on housing across Canada.
- Since 2018, homelessness has nearly doubled across Canada, with approximately 65,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2025.
- The previous year, in Winnipeg alone, 2,469 people were identified as experiencing homelessness on a given night. Of those surveyed, nearly 68% were experiencing chronic homelessness, approximately 80% identified as Indigenous, and nine in 10 reported at least one health condition or health-related challenge, including substance use and mental health issues.
- Reaching Home supports community-led efforts to prevent and reduce homelessness, including chronic homelessness. It gives communities flexibility to address local priorities and supports distinctions-based approaches.
- Reaching Home works with communities all across Canada to collect and analyse homelessness data. This includes providing free software (the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System) that is used to create real-time data, coordinating annual enumerations in over 100 cities, and publishing longitudinal studies about the use of shelters.
- Toronto’s Dunn House, Canada’s first social medicine housing project, combines permanent supportive housing with on-site health and social supports. The project is already delivering strong results, including a 52% reduction in emergency department visits, a 79% reduction in hospital stay length among residents, and $2.1 million in hospital savings within its first two years of operation.
- Launched in September 2025, Build Canada Homes is Canada’s federal housing agency dedicated to accelerating the construction of affordable housing at scale. It brings together federal land, financing, investment, and development expertise to build and enable affordable, supportive, and transitional housing, working with non-profit, Indigenous, public, and private partners.